The Experiential Account of Aesthetic Value

It is the beginning of a powerful argument for an experiential account of aesthetic value that one must experience an artwork for oneself in order to appreciate its aesthetic value. One can know that some hero is a great man from an accurate description of his actions or characteristics in nonnormative terms; similarly for a great computer or any other machine. But the aesthetic value of artworks is manifest only in experiencing them for oneself. This point has been made many times by many philosophers of art. Typically, they seek an explanation for it in some peculiar logical relation between the nonaesthetic properties of artworks and their aesthetic properties. But the less mysterious explanation is threefold: first and foremost, that the aesthetic value of artworks lies only in the experience of them; second, that the context in which any property of an artwork is experienced can radically alter the experience of it; and third, that different observers, even fully qualified observers, can experience the same objective properties of artworks differently. If the value of artworks lies in the experience of them, and if that experience varies with context and observer, then one must experience artworks in order to appreciate their value. (What may look like the fallacy of affirming the consequent is really an inference to the best explanation.) That the aesthetic value of artworks lies in the